


Miles Straume vs the Music Industry

by eagle_eyes



Category: Lost
Genre: Ableism Mention, Aromantic, Aromantic Character, Gen, Pre-Canon, Teen Angst, but it's part of miles' character so it's fine, gratuitous music references, so much teen angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eagle_eyes/pseuds/eagle_eyes
Summary: Miles is an angry sixteen-year-old who likes punk music and doesn't like how his friends are suddenly all obsessed with dating.He can also talk to dead people, but that's not important right now.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Aggressively Arospec Week '20





	Miles Straume vs the Music Industry

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Aggressively Arospec Week 2020!
> 
> Shoutout to everyone in the Lost discord server for letting me yell about my teen Miles headcanons 24/7

Even by sixteen-year-old standards, Miles Straume is an angry kid. He’s well aware of that fact and wears it with pride. Why the hell shouldn’t he be angry? It’s not like his good-for-fuck-all dad and all his mom’s judgy relatives and the other kids at school don’t give him plenty to be angry about. And frankly, if Jared in the year above was running his mouth one day about Miles being a nutcase who hears voices and Miles _maybe_ lost his shit and _maybe_ scratched that idiot hard enough to draw blood, well, that’s not Miles’ problem. 

In spite of this (or maybe because of it, Miles doesn’t know and he certainly isn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth), he does actually have friends. They’re good people, and they care about him, and they never make comments about his dad or his family’s financial situation or the time he was temporarily pulled out of school for a psych evaluation because he hadn’t learned to keep his mouth shut about hearing dead people yet, or any of the billion other things he gets into fights with the other kids at school over. Deep down Miles knows that he shouldn’t get angry with them, especially if he actually wants to still have friends by the time high school’s over, but somehow it always ends up happening anyway.

“I can’t believe you guys actually listen to this shit!” he tells them with a little bit too much scorn one night when they’re all just hanging out at his friend Scott’s house listening to the radio. Oh, and smoking. There’s enough cigarette smoke in the air that Miles barely gets through his sentence without choking.

His friends collectively roll their eyes at him. They’ve long learned that trying to get Miles to think positively when he’s in a mood like this is borderline impossible - it’s easier to just let him rant until he runs out of steam. Still, it’s Scott’s house, so the poor guy feels some kind of sense of duty to make sure all his guests are having fun.

“C’mon, Miles, don’t be so dramatic,” he practically pleads with him, “It’s just the damn radio! And shockingly, I don’t think listening to the top 40 for once in your life is gonna kill you.”

Miles just snorts, “Well sorry for wanting to put on some better music for once. I guess it’d be too much to ask for you to have any _Sex Pistols_ CDs…”

There’s a collective groan from the rest of the gathering. “Seriously, Miles?” says Gabe, a scrawny kid with even more of a big mouth than Miles himself, “You’re such an old man. No one’s listened to the Sex Pistols since like the 60s!”

Miles lifts himself up slightly from his position sprawled on the floor and reaches for another cigarette, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “They broke up in 1978, _actually_.”

After a drag on the cigarette, Miles returns to his assault on the institution of popular music: “Fine, you guys don’t wanna listen to any old music? I think that’s incredibly annoying of you, but I can roll with that. Punk is very much not dead. Any of you ever heard of Green Day? Or maybe The Offspring? ‘Cuz they’re really -”

“Jesus, Miles,” Scott sighs, “Listen, I get that you’re like, this cool Indie music guy, I respect that, but...you do realise you’re not _legally obligated_ to hate all popular music, right?”

For a second, Miles is a little concerned he’s actually pushed them too far with his ceaseless complaining, until he realises two things. Firstly, that Scott can’t quite hide the amusement behind his exasperation. And secondly, that he’s above worrying about dumb bullshit like that. Obviously.

“I can’t believe you’d suggest my hatred of pop music is anything but genuine,” he says, mock-offended, and blows a cloud of smoke directly into Scott’s face. Scott splutters but still laughs at him. “Nah, I don’t hate this music for the cred or anything,” Miles continues, “I hate it because it’s dumb. Like, objectively, this is so dumb!” He makes a dismissive gesture in the direction of the radio, “You guys can moon over how fun and catchy it is all you want - doesn’t change the fact that all pop music has about as much interesting to say as fuckin’ Jared.”

And everyone chuckles at that, because fuckin’ Jared is indeed very dumb and has nothing interesting to say and everyone knows it, and for a second Miles thinks he’s maybe got them on his side.

Then Gabe pipes up again, “Sure, maybe some pop music is just there to be nice to listen to, but you can’t say that _everything_ popular is dumb! Like, think about the bands people say are ‘the best’ - they’re almost always ones that were really popular, right? Just look at The Beatles - they were one of the most popular bands ever, sold out tours everywhere, and they’re always on every list of ‘Best bands of all time’ or whatever. Popular music and good music can be the same thing!”

Miles grimaces at that; if he’d known Gabe wanted a whole-ass debate about the music industry he never would have said anything. Actually articulating his feelings on anything comes so much less naturally to him than just aimless snarky belligerence after all. 

Still, aimless snarky belligerence has worked pretty well for him so far, so might as well stick to it. “Pfft, no way! The Beatles are trash too! Everyone just likes them because they think they’re supposed too!”

Everyone just groans at that, and Miles is pretty sure Joe tries to throw a cigarette end at him. Fortunately Joe has roughly the same hand-eye coordination as a beached fish, and the cigarette end lands on the carpet several metres away from where Miles is sitting. 

“See, that proves it,” says Joe, “You totally just think you’re too cool for popular things. I don’t even _like_ the Beatles much, but the only reason why anyone’s ever _that_ hateful about the Beatles is because they want to prove they’re the most pretentious guy in the room.”

Miles glares at him, affronted, and glances around at the others hoping for a defence. 

Gabe looks at him apologetically, “Sorry man, but he’s kinda right. I mean, you go on and on about how much you hate pop music, but what’s even your problem with it? How come you refuse to listen to anything that isn’t some old obscure punk music?”

To Miles, there’s a very clear answer to that question. To him, that old obscure punk music his friends have such disdain is the truth - it’s real in a way that the maudlin love ballads they play on the radio aren’t. No matter how much his peers might wax lyrical about how “real” and “powerful” the newest sad love song is, he’s always struggled to relate to them, to pretend like such things matter to him. Anger and injustice and rebellion, however - those are things that are real. Things that matter.

But he’s also smart enough to know that his friends are going to not understand that at best and be actively weirded out by it at worst. So he tries to put it in terms they will hopefully get.

“Ok, look, the thing is,” he says, “Every popular song ever is like, exactly the same. It’s always just some guy complaining because the girl doesn’t love him. Or the other way round. Doesn’t matter, it’s always dumb anyway.”

Scott snorts and ruffles Miles’ hair in a way that’s only mildly condescending, “Ok, tough guy. You go on pretending like you’ve never had a feeling in your life!”

“And what the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?” Miles glares at him.

“Oh, y’know,” Scott shrugs, “You want everyone to think you’re this tough guy and that you’re above...all that stuff. Sappy emotional stuff, you know.”

“Oh, and you’re suddenly not?” Miles grins up at him from his spot on the floor, “Didn’t realise you were such a softie, man.” He takes another long drag on the cigarette, confident in the fact that his cool guy image lives another day.

“Eh. I’m only human. Can’t help falling in love, right?”

Miles chokes violently on the cigarette smoke. 

“Jesus, seriously?” he wheezes, “You gotta be _kidding_ me.”

The others laugh a little nervously at that. Joe, who Miles is really starting to develop a poor opinion of, decides to share his own opinion on the matter. “You’re really surprised that Scott’s on the hunt for a girlfriend? He’s been asking out like, every single girl in the school for the past two weeks! This isn’t exactly breaking news.”

That may be so for the rest of them, but it’s sure as hell breaking news to Miles. “That’s so _weird_! You’re still like, fourteen -”

“I’m like a month younger than you, Miles. And old enough to be looking for something more serious.”

Miles decides to just ignore Scott’s second point instead of dealing with the implications of it. “Point is, what the hell are you looking for an actual relationship right now for? Just try slutting it up round Encino like the rest of us! Make out with some girl you’ve only just met at a party! Live a little! Jesus christ.”

“Yeah, well, no offence Miles,” says Scott, and Miles could swear he actually looks a little pissed at him, “But how long do you think that’s actually gonna last you? You’ve gotta grow up sometime.”

Miles is tempted to just go back “What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?” - his Ol’ Reliable for whenever someone says stuff like that to him, which is becoming more and more common by the day. But there’s no point to that now. He knows exactly what Scott means, and he hates it. 

“What, so I’m immature now?” he demands, getting to his feet, “Well, jeez, Scott, didn’t realise you guys had such a big problem with me having fun while I’m still in high school! So one second you treat me like I’m the cool guy you need for every party because I’m such a ‘player’ - and _by the way_ I never fucking liked you calling me that - I thought it made me sound like some creep when all I’ve ever done is hook up with a couple of people who were looking for a hookup anyway…” Miles suddenly realises he has no idea where he’s actually going with this rant. He’s as surprised as the others that he’s suddenly made his ‘player’ reputation relevant. He kind of hates admitting how much he dislikes it seeing as it’s pretty much the only thing about him the other guys at school actually respect.

“But now, suddenly you all think it’s because I’m...what? Too immature to date, is that it?”

“Miles, I didn’t mean that,” Scott protests, “I just meant, like, long-term-”

“I’m not taking advice on how to be more mature from a guy who won’t listen to any music that’s more than five years old! Is that what maturity means to you, huh, Scott? Just listening to whatever junk makes you think about the girl you happen to be crushing on that week? Maybe you’d actually give the shit I listen to a chance if you knew about actual important stuff in the world! If you knew there’s more important things than whether or not some girl notices you!”

“Hey Miles, lay off him a second!” Joe jumps in, “He just gave you some advice, you don’t have to be so fucking defensive about it!”

If he weren’t so bursting with anger, Miles would laugh at that. “Shut the fuck up, man. You both think you’re better than me because you think you understand relationships more than I do. You guys _always_ act like that, and I’m fucking sick of it!”

He quickly grabs his pack of cigarettes from the table and stalks out of the room. “I’m so fucking done with this,” he mutters. A chorus of “Wait, Miles!” rises up as he leaves. 

He storms out of Scott’s house, head held high in righteous indignation, and immediately regrets every decision he’s made that day. How the fuck did a dumb debate about music get so out of hand? For a couple of seconds he lingers on the corner of the street. His free hand finds a railing and grips it tightly, knuckles going white. He briefly considers going back and apologising to Scott, but then he breathes in the cigarette smoke again and his resolve strengthens. He shouldn’t have to go back and apologise when Scott was the one who made it all personal. Well, Scott and Joe. Joe has really earned a spot on his shit list after today. 

And ok, _maybe_ cussing out all his friends and basically accusing them of being shallow and then storming out wasn’t the _best_ reaction… but they had it coming! Miles can handle a lot of things, but no one gets to call him immature and get away with it! Certainly not over something as dumb as his lack of interest in dating. And certainly not assholes like Scott who’s parents have always paid for everything and have never had to work a day in their lives and think maturity is counted in how many dates you’ve been on. Scott wouldn’t know maturity if it punched him in the fucking face. 

Of course, it then occurs to Miles that the whole screaming-and-storming-out-of-the-house thing probably didn’t make the best case for his maturity. Oops.

Miles rubs his temples frustratedly, trying not to think about the amount of damage control he’s going to have to do for this evening. Having friends by the end of high school is starting to look increasingly ropy. He could always drop out now… It’d certainly be a hell of a way to go. 

He understands, on some level, that this is his fault, his issue that needs solving. It’s not the others’ fault that the mere concept of romance or dating or god forbid _marriage_ , even in a cheerful pop song let alone in his actual life, fills him with more dread than the voices of the dead do. On some level he’s aware this is something deeper than just typical teen nervousness or awkwardness. It’s something that feels fundamental to who he is. Something that he really, _really_ needs to start taking seriously and actually figuring out his feelings about. 

But feelings aren’t something Miles Straume has ever been good at. Except for anger, of course. He’s really damn good at being angry.


End file.
